Real life Dennis the Menace foils grumpy old man's plot to take down his lemonade stand

Portrait of a criminal diversifying his products into regular lemonade and strawberry.

T.J. Guerrero is a 12-year-old kid who's life is ripped directly from the comic books. He set up a lemonade stand on a busy corner in his neighborhood to save up money for an ipod and snacks, but grumpy neighbor Doug Wilkey is bent on taking the stand down.

“I am very worried about the value of my home, which is why I built in a residential area, not a business area,” 61-year-old Wilkey wrote in one of a few angry letters to City Hall in Dunedin, Florida.

If putting up a lemonade stand in a yard is a business, then someone should really set up an anti-trust investigation on the stoop-sale my neighbors have been running. They must be raking in literally tens if not hundreds of dollars.

Wilkey complained that T.J's friends made noise as they lingered near the stand with their skateboards ("those darn kids with their infuriating wheeled boards"). He also complained that the boys used profanity, threw rocks and debris that Wilkey had to pick up before mowing, and set off fireworks that scared his dog,

What a terror! Hard to believe a sweet little boy that told the Tampa Bay Times that he uses some of his profits to "go on trips with his grandpa" could be guilty of such appallingly normal 12-year-old antics.

He's a real mastermind, this one. Look at Guerrero in the video. Terror in the boardroom but turn the cameras on him and he's a perfect angel.

Of course, City Hall is not ready to take action on this serious threat to Wilkey's well being.

Dunedin planning and development director Greg Rice told the Tampa Bay Times, "We are not out there trying to put lemonade stands out of business."

Can't trust politicians to get things done anymore. It must be a conspiracy. Clearly, Guerrero has Rice in his back pocket. Maybe he's been giving him 10 cents from every $1 cup he sells, or possibly Rice and his friends get free fresh baked cookies when they walk by.

If anything, the dispute has been good for Guerreros's operation. The story was picked up by a local radio show (102.5 The Bone, lol) calling for listeners to come by and patronize the lemonade stand. The kid made over $1,000 in four hours.